We work with startups all the time and being developers based right in downtown San Francisco get to see A LOT of companies start up. Subsequently we also see A LOT of companies not quite make it off the ground (aka fail). Looking at these retrospectively and abstracting out the general problems (computer science) we can start to notice patterns emerge. This article is meant to simply highlight some of these observations. Think of it as a form of early-stage gotchas.Don't hide your idea.The most obvious and painful thing that blocks people from actually starting their company is that founders, for some reason, have a tendency to hide their idea. The fear is that somebody will steal this brilliant idea and build an awesome company out of it. Having this thought process is incredibly harmful because these founders don't allow themselves to test their idea and let it take a life of its own.